In prior art, in a liquid crystal image display device equipped with a liquid crystal display panel, a glass plate serving as a surface protection panel is disposed on the visible side of the liquid crystal display panel for the purpose of protecting the surface of the liquid crystal display panel. However, in recent years, with the requests for weight reduction and improvement of shock resistance for these, transparent synthetic resin plates such as acrylic plates and polycarbonate plates are being used as alternative materials to glass substrates.
In addition, in this type of liquid crystal image display devices, layering has been carried out in prior art by providing a gap between the liquid crystal display panel and the surface protection panel, thereby elevating cushioning characteristics and preventing scratching and cracking of the liquid crystal display panels. However, not only there is the problem that reflections arise at the interface between the surface protection panel and the gap, decreasing image visibility and rendering an image difficult to see, particularly outdoors, but there is also the problem that providing a gap becomes an obstacle to thinning. Therefore, directly layering the liquid crystal display panel and the surface protection panel through a transparent pressure-sensitive adhesive or sheet has been proposed with the objective of achieving both thinning and visibility improvement. For instance, in Patent Reference 1 or the like, it is disclosed of a surface protection panel having a constitution which a transparent gas barrier film comprising a metal oxide film formed on a base film such as a biaxially-stretched polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film or a biaxially-stretched polypropylene (OPP) film is layered on each side of a transparent synthetic resin plate and a base film.